Майн Рид
The Fatal Cord, and The Falcon Rover

Story 2-Chapter IV.
At the Spout

Ossario. Stand, ho! Who are you?

Antonio. We are true men, sir.

Ossario. True men, give the word – and pass.

Old Play.

Walter. Only a pleasant jest, I do assure you.

The borry Joke.

When the two men descended the ravine leading to the shore, the sun was half an hour above the horizon. Before they left the mouth of the ravine, they dismounted, at the suggestion of Captain Marston, and fastened their horses to the drooping branches of a tree which grew by the side of the road. The animals were, in this situation, out of sight of the place of rendezvous. The companions having thus made their horses secure, advanced to the shore.

The novelist, and even the poet, could find no lovelier locality, ready created for the scenes of fancied grief and pleasures, than that contained within lines embracing Saint Leonard’s Creek and its immediate adjuncts. Not only is the stream itself – especially in the fair expanse near its junction with the river, which is now supposed to lie glowing and dimpling in the morning sunshines with varying lights and shadows, before the reader’s mental eyes – remarkably beautiful; but all around it – every bill and dale, every field and grove, every jutting promontory and retiring cove – partakes of the same character of pre-eminent loveliness.

On the southern side of the expanse mentioned is a broad beach of white sand. From the side of a cliff which towers above this beach flows a fountain of water, very pure, clear, and cold, and equally abundant at all seasons of the year. This fountain is known throughout a large district of surrounding country as the Spout, and is some fifty yards from the spot where the road, leading down the ravine before-mentioned, enters upon the sands.

Just as Captain Marston and John Coe stepped upon the shore, and were turning to the left hand to seek the fountain, a short and stout man, about forty years of age, with long, curling locks of reddish-brown hair, and a face very darkly tanned by sun and breeze, and, probably, by battle, too – to judge by the marks upon his countenance – presented himself before them.

“Stand!” exclaimed this individual, planting himself directly in front of the two young men, and presenting a cocked pistol in each hand.

“We’ll see about that,” said John Coe, sternly, drawing a pistol also.

But Captain Marston placed a hand upon the arm of the angry young man.

“Don’t be so fast, John,” he said. “Don’t you see the twinkle in the fellow’s eyes? I am disposed to believe that this is but a jest after all. What do you want?” he continued, addressing the sailor.

“No one can go beyond this spot,” answered the stranger, “without giving the password.”

“A F E?” said Captain Marston, interrogatively.

“There seems to be something in that,” remarked the sailor; “but it will not answer.”

“How will this answer?” asked the captain. “‘All for Each?’”

“All right,” was the reply; “pass, gentlemen.”

As the two young men walked forward, they were followed by the sailor, who still held the two pistols in his hands.

On arriving in front of the Spout, they found a beautiful row-boat, the bow of which just touched the shore. It was manned by four sturdy seamen, whose hands rested upon their oars, which were ready placed in their rowlocks. A boy, apparently between fifteen and sixteen years of age, in straw hat and light blue trousers and jacket, occupied the stern seat. This last-mentioned person was remarkably handsome; his face was beautifully oval in its shape; its complexion was a pale brunette (if I may use the phrase), there being in it no tinge of red. His form was slender and graceful; his large, soft black eyes had a thoughtful, or rather a dreamy expression, and masses of jet-black curls hung down below his shoulders.

“Jump aboard, gentlemen,” said the sailor in fancy dress; “the time is fully arrived, and we shall be expected as soon as we can make the distance. If we don’t go at once, somebody will be disappointed.”

“A moment, if you please, sir,” said John, in a sarcastic tone and manner, and with a darkening expression of face. “May I claim the honour of knowing your name?”

“Certainly, sir,” was the answer, accompanied by a mock-ceremonious bow, which did not tend to cool the rising wrath of young Coe. “My name is William Brown, better known as Billy Bowsprit. This latter name may seem, unaccompanied by a proper explanation, to derogate from the dignity of the fair position which I occupy in maritime society, and with which, by-the-bye, I will presently make you acquainted. But it originated in what was, in fact, a compliment to my wit and my other good qualities. A highly intelligent gentleman, of French inclinations – having probably been born of such a disposition, seeing that he was a native of Paris – once did me the honour, on account of some slight jocular remark which fell from me in a social hour, of saying that I was a beau esprit. The rude, unlettered sailors,” he waved a hand towards those in the row-boat, “have, in their ignorance, manufactured out of this compliment the absurd name of Bowsprit. I submit to the soubriquet, partly because those who use it do not know any better, but mainly because it intimates a just compliment, seeing that, as the bowsprit is in advance of the ship, so do I take the lead of all on shipboard in all affairs where either sagacity or boldness is required.”

“Well, Mr Brown,” began young Coe —

“Allow me, if you please, sir,” said Bowsprit, interrupting him, and making at the same time a low and apologetic bow; “I have not yet finished the catalogue of myself, a desire to become acquainted with which was intimated in your polite and very flattering inquiry. Permit me to add, to what I have already said, that I fill the honourable post of first-mate on board of as beautiful a little craft as eye was ever blessed with seeing.”

The reader will, perhaps, be surprised at the great apparent improvement in the language of Billy Bowsprit since his first introduction in the second chapter. The fact is, that individual had received what is called a good ordinary education, and prided himself upon his ability to talk in either good English, or in what he styled “sailors’ lingo.”

“Well, Mr Brown, better known as Billy Bowsprit,” said John Coe, in a tone of voice expressive of both anger and resolution, as soon as the voluble sailor gave him an opportunity of speaking, “I wish you to know that I do not allow myself to be dealt with in this summary manner. I shall return home, and any man who interferes with me will do so at his imminent peril.”

Saying this, he drew both of his pistols, setting the hammers with his thumbs in the act of drawing them from his pockets.

Billy Bowsprit raised the pistol which was in his right hand, and was about to pull the trigger, when at a slight and rapid sign from Captain Marston, who stood a little in the rear of young Coe, he suddenly pointed the muzzles of both pistols towards the ground. At the same moment the captain drew both of his pistols also, and placed himself by the side of John.

“Come,” he said, addressing Billy Bowsprit in a really stern voice, “if this is a jest – as I think it is – we have had enough of it. Tell us what you want, and what the whole of this singular affair means.”

“Why, sir,” replied the seaman, in a somewhat crestfallen tone, “no harm has been meant to either of you all the while; and if this young gentleman,” looking at John, “hadn’t been quite so fiery, everything would have been explained to you some time ago. The fact is, my captain is an old acquaintance of both of you; he hasn’t seen either of you for years, and so is very anxious to see you both, if only for a short time. He wants you to come and take breakfast with him this morning. He had business with the schooner up the river here as far as Benedict, to land a cargo of goods. He has to get to Baltimore as soon as possible, but was determined to see you both first. So he landed me early yesterday morning, on this side of the river, opposite Benedict, to carry a message to you. But not knowing the latitude and longitude of that part of the country, I was obliged to take bearings and to make observations so often, that I did not arrive in your neighbourhood till after midnight; and I did not of course like to waken up families who were strangers to me at such a time of night. The notion about the cards was one of my own – a kind of experiment. I know how much curiosity there is in the world; and I felt certain, therefore, of seeing you two gentlemen here this morning.”

“Thank you for the compliment, Mr Bowlegs – I beg your pardon – Bowsprit,” said the captain. “You seem to be somewhat of a philosopher; you carry out a plan with so much coolness, so much self-possession, beings always on your guard neither to act nor to speak hastily or unadvisedly.”

There was evidently sarcasm, if not irony, in the captain’s remarks.

The sailor bowed merely; he seemed to be, to use a common expression, “struck dumb.”

Young Coe laughed heartily. Yet he must doubtless have felt somewhat abashed at the conviction that Marston’s course of treating the affair as a farce was decidedly more successful than his own, of viewing it as a melodrama.

There was silence for a minute or two, during which all the pistols which had been drawn were put out of sight. At length the stillness was broken by a question from John.

“How did you manage to get your card or note into my room?” he asked of the sailor.

“Allow me to keep that secret to myself,” answered Billy Bowsprit, with a smile, holding out in his hand at the same time, however, several skeleton keys. “But you are not to suppose, Mr Coe, that these keys show that I have any bad habits; I have never used them except in such innocent ventures as the present.”

John took the skeleton keys in his hand; he had never seen such instruments before.

“I don’t think,” he remarked, returning the keys, “that any one of those could possibly unlock my outer door.”

“One must understand the use of them,” replied Billy Bowsprit. “I have others, however.”

“How did you so readily make your way to this point!” asked Captain Marston of Billy Bowsprit.

“Why, sir,” was the reply, “I have been over this road before, many years ago now. On that occasion, I was for a short time at the houses of both your father and Mr Coe. I came here because this was the place where this boat here was to meet you two gentlemen and myself.”

“Who is this friend of ours who wants to see us, Mr Bowsprit – I mean Mr Brown?” asked John.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” was the answer. “My captain particularly ordered me not to tell you; he wanted, he said, to give you a pleasant surprise.”

“What do you say, John?” asked Captain Marston. “Shall we accept the invitation of this unknown friend?”

“If we knew what to do with our horses,” said John, “and I could get a note home to tell them what has become of me, I should say ‘yes’ at once.”

“If that is all that is in the way, gentlemen,” said Mr Brown, alias Bowsprit, “get your notes ready at once. Here, Tom,” he continued, addressing the youth who was sitting on the stern seat of the row-boat, “do you knew the way to Millmont and to Blue Oldfields?”

“If I don’t, I can inquire for it, sir,” answered the boy.

“Then, as soon as you get the notes which these gentlemen want you to deliver at their houses,” said Bowsprit, “take their horses, which you will find just behind those trees, there,” pointing, “where the road corners with the shore; and as soon as you can do so, deliver notes and horses to their proper addresses. You will then walk down to Drum Point, where we shall be by that time, and we will there take you aboard.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” said the boy.

While these directions were being given, Captain Marston had drawn a note-book and a couple of lead-pencils from his pocket. Tearing a blank leaf from the book, he handed that and one of the pencils to John. Using their hats as writing-desks, the two young men soon finished their notes and handed them to the boy, who immediately started on his mission.

The four men in the boat had been merely lookers-on and listeners in respect to what had been taking place on the shore.

When the boy took his departure, Captain Marston, John Coe, and Billy Bowsprit leaped into the boat.

“Will you steer, Captain Marston, if you please?” asked Bowsprit.

“With pleasure,” answered the captain. “Then, if Mr Coe will take his seat with you at the stern,” said the sailor, “I will take my place at the bow, and act as lookout.”

The seats were taken, and the boat having been driven from the shore by one or two backward strokes of the oars, her head was turned down the creek. The supple rowers bending “with a will” to the elastic blades, the light craft fleetly bounded on her course over the glowing tide of Saint Leonard’s, towards the broad Clearwater, which lay before them in the morning sunshine as ever bright and beautiful.

Story 2-Chapter V.
On Board the Schooner

Sebastian. How are you, friends?

I’m very glad to see you.

As You Will.

Toby. Who are these men, sir?

Wily Will. They’re travellers only.

The Masquerade.

The row-boats, carrying John, Captain Harry Marston, Billy Bowsprit, and the four seamen, leaving the mouth of Saint Leonard’s Creek, entered upon that largest and fairest of the several lake-like expanses of the Clearwater – being six miles in length and three in width – which lies between Point Patience on the south-east, and Solitary Point on the north-west.

On gaining an offing sufficient to give the occupants of the boat a view commanding the whole expanse, only one vessel was in sight. This was a graceful little schooner, of about thirty tons burden, which lay at anchor on a part of the river called the Flats, situate on the eastern side of the stream; she was in a position south-east of Otter Point, directly in front of Hungerford’s Creek, and about a mile and a half from Point Patience. An easy row of three-quarters of an hour over the crystal-like waters, which were but slightly stirred by a slight wind, brought the boat from the Spout alongside of this schooner.

A vessel so small required no steps to ascend her sides, and the occupants of the row-boat soon leaped upon the deck. They were there met by a young man about five feet and a half in height, with blue eyes, light flaxen hair, and cheeks which, originally fair, were somewhat tanned by exposure to sun, wind, and weather. He was dressed in roundabout and pantaloons of light blue cloth, pumps, and light straw hat.

“How are you, John? how are you, Harry?” he exclaimed, shaking hands with Coe and Marston, with much appearance of cordiality. “I am very glad to see you. I hope that you are not offended with the ruse which I used to bring you to see me for a short time? I feared that, if you knew who it was, you would not take the trouble to come to see me.”

Both of the young men assured him that a ruse was not at all necessary; it was nearly preventing them from coming, and that, had they only known at once that it was their old school-friend, George Dempster, who wanted to see them, there would have been no hesitation on their part in coming to visit him.

John Coe was much surprised at finding George Dempster – who had been his classmate at Princeton, and who was the oldest son of a planter in good circumstances on the eastern shore of Maryland – occupying the position of skipper of a small bay-craft; politeness, however, prevented him from making any allusion to what seemed to him so singular.

Captain Dempster – to give him the title generally bestowed in courtesy upon the commander of the smallest trading craft, on the Chesapeake Bay, at least – invited his old friends to come at once into his cabin.

Here a mahogany table was handsomely set out, being spread with a fine linen diaper cloth, and being covered with a porcelain breakfast-set. Cushioned mahogany seats for four surrounded the table.

The steward – or he who in a vessel so small generally performs the duties of both that officer and of cook – had apparently already received his orders, for scarcely had the captain, his mate, and his two friends entered the cabin, when breakfast was placed on the table. Fragrant coffee, light rolls, fresh butter, ham and eggs, fried crocuses and soft crabs, formed the repast.

“You may think it strange, my friends,” said Captain Dempster, while the party of four were partaking of the meal, for which the bracing morning air and their early ride and row had given my hero and Captain Marston keen appetites, “that you find me in this position. The matter is easily explained, however. It is due to a compromise, agreed to by my father and myself, between my extreme views in favour of a life on the ocean and his extreme views in favour of a life for me on the land. Thus I can indulge, to a limited extent, my preference for a seafaring life, and he can enjoy what he honours me by calling the pleasure of seeing me frequently. I confess that I would much prefer a life on the open sea; but one must not be disobedient to an affectionate and generally indulgent father.”

While the three friends – Mr Bowsprit had left the table, as soon as his appetite was satisfied, to attend to duties upon deck – sat over their claret, talking of “old days,” as, even when young, we fondly call them, hours sped on. In the meantime the anchor had been secured on board, the sails hoisted, and the vessel had laid her course down the river, impelled by a light wind from the west. Point Patience was soon rounded, and in two hours and a half or three hours from the time of leaving her anchorage, the schooner had passed down the lowest reach of Clearwater, and had rounded to at the extreme end of Drum Point, to take on board the lad who had been sent to deliver the horses and notes of John Alvan Coe and Captain Marston to their respective homes. The boy made excellent speed, and was waiting at the place of rendezvous when the schooner was still some miles from the Point.

“Why, Dempster,” said young Coe, seeing that they had passed Drum Point Harbour, “you are not going out upon the bay, are you?”

“I have to take off a load of cord-wood,” was the answer, “from the shore near the old Eltonhead Manor House, this side of Cove Point. We shall there be but little farther from your home than here at Drum Point; and I want to see all that I can of both of you. But think, Coe, of my carrying a load of fire-wood to Baltimore!

“‘To what base uses we may come, Horatio.’”

“But how are Marston and myself to get home this evening?” asked John.

“Oh! as to that matter,” was the answer, “I can borrow horses from Mr Chew, whose house is but a few miles from Eltonhead; and the boy Tom, who took your horses home this morning, can go with you, and bring back the animals. But I hope that you will not return until the morning. Let me spend at least one evening with you.”

“What do you say, Marston?” asked John, who was enjoying the society of his friends very much. “I have not seen that lonely old Eltonhead house since I was a schoolboy, and I should like to see it again, especially if we could visit it ‘by the glimpses of the moon’ to-night, since it has now, and has had for some time, I believe, the reputation of being haunted. I hardly think that they would feel uneasy at home on account of my continued absence, as I merely said in my note that I was going to visit a friend on board of his vessel.”

“If you are agreed, let us stay,” replied Marston. “I should like to revisit the old house myself, especially as you say, to

 
“‘Visit it by the pale moonlight.’”
 

“And, if you gentlemen desire it,” said Captain Dempster, “I will have some hammocks swung this evening in the old manor house. We will pass the night there, and will thus – to take a liberty with Sir Walter Scott’s verse – dare

 
“‘To brave the witches in their den,
The spirits in their hall.’”
 

This proposition being very agreeable to both Coe and Marston, they consented to continue as Captain Dempster’s guests until the morning.

The three young men remained upon deck to enjoy the glorious day and the beautiful and rapidly shifting scenes presented to their view, as the schooner skirted, within a few hundred yards of the beach, the northern shore of Patuxent Roads – a sheet of water which is, in fact (as I have before mentioned, I think), a gulf or widening of the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Clearwater river. While the three friends were gaily chatting, inspired by the cheering influence of their surroundings, Mr Bowsprit walked up to the commander of the craft.

“Captain Dempster,” he said, “I think those sailors in the hold and forecastle will be getting into a state of mutiny soon, if we don’t let them come out upon deck. They say that their quarters are too close.”

“Tell them,” replied the skipper, “they can come up as soon as they please; we are now fairly out of the Clearwater – at least, out of sight of Drum Point Harbour.”

The sheet of water called Patuxent Roads is by some considered to be a part of the Clearwater river.

“These men of whom Mr Brown speaks,” continued Captain Dempster, addressing his two friends, “are some newly-discharged United States seamen, whom I am taking to Baltimore. I had a load of freight to carry from Baltimore to Portsmouth. At the latter place these men applied to me for passage to the former city. I told them that I had freight to take from Portsmouth to Benedict, and then a load of wood to carry to Baltimore. As they did not care much for the delay, I bargained to take them to Baltimore, and to charge them only for what their board while on the schooner might be worth, on condition that they would help us to load and to unload. I did not wish so many men to be seen on board of my craft while in the river, since such an incident would probably subject me to the delay of a search by the revenue officer, who, having but very little to do, naturally wishes to make the most of his office.”

About thirty rough, sunburnt and weather-beaten men now came upon the deck. Among them was almost every variety of dress which nautical fashions then allowed; but the cloth roundabouts and tarpaulin hats prevailed. They kept away from the after-part of the deck, gathering in groups amidships and towards the bow. They seemed to be in fine spirits, as frequent bursts of somewhat subdued laughter came from the different groups. Little did young Coe think that he was the subject of their merriment.

It was scarcely half an hour after these men came upon deck when the schooner anchored about fifty yards from the beach, at a point where long ranks of pine and oak cord-wood were ranged along the edge of the cliff, which was here but from twenty to twenty-five feet high. A large flatboat, oblong in shape, and of the kind commonly called “scow,” was lying on rollers far up on the beach and close under the cliff.

As soon as the anchor was dropped overboard and the sails lowered and secured, the row-boat – which had been hanging from the davits at the stern of the schooner since the lad had been taken aboard at Drum Point – was forthwith let down into the water. It had to make three trips from the schooner to the shore before the unusually large number of hands were all landed. Then the scow was at once pushed into the water. Some of the seamen soon ascended the cliff by a small ravine near at hand; and the work of throwing down the wood to the beach, pitching it to the water’s edge, and piling it into the scow was at once commenced.

Our hero and his two friends passed the rest of the day, to all appearances, very pleasantly together; there was so much to say to each other of what young people call, queerly enough, “old times,” so much that each had to tell to the others of what had occurred to himself since their last meeting. About an hour after the schooner came to anchor they took their dinner – which comprised “all the luxuries of the season” – in the elegant little cabin. Mr Bowsprit was present at this meal, and added to the enjoyment of it by his unique and pleasant sallies. This joyous individual was with them only at dinner; his duty required him to attend to the loading of the vessel. The dinner of the hands, by the way, was sent ashore to them, and eaten under the shade of the trees upon the cliff.